Whose Story is it, any way?
by SharanMcQuack
Summary: El Captiane And Marching slowly are back!


**Whose Story is it Anyway?**

* * *

If read TVtome, you may know how somebody suggested doing a story about El Captine from "Treasure of the Golden Suns".

I suggested the begining of this story, and somebody added a Launchpad-bashing middle, which got me mad.

So I'm taking my story BACK and thank you very much for getting me past my writer's block, I'm sure.

* * *

Walking Slowly, after being abandoned by his followers, was going thur the belonging left to him by his ancestors. He was looking for a way to regain the power he lost when he lost the Sun Coin. He found a copy of BOTH halves of the map to the Valley of the Golden Suns that his ancestor, Marching Slowly made on the sly. (1)

So Walking stole some gold from his ex-followers and boarded a ship bound for the city nearest to the Valley of the Golden Suns. But when Walking arrived at where the Valley once was he found only the mountain of dirt, where El Captaine was still fractically trying to dig up the gold.

Walking spoke to El Captaine and offered to help dig up the gold in exchange for a single coin from the treasure. After much arguing, El Captaine agreed, while planning to give Walking nothing but "the business".

Walking came up with the idea of diverting mountain streams to get to the gold and using slugh gates to catch any gold mixed into the dirt. (2) Soon, they were doing so.

It didn't take long for word of this to reach Mr. McDuck. He called Launchpad and they heading down, pronto. However, when they arrived, Walking Slowly and El Captaine were no where in sight and the rivers had been re-diverted back onto their original course. But it was painfully oblivious where Walking and El Captiane had gone: the rivers had revealed a lava tunnel leading down ramp-like and there were two sets of footprints in the wet mud.

Launchpad went to the plane and fetched a couple of flashlights, some rope and other climbing equipment. Then he and Mr. McDuck headed down the lava tunnel. The tunnel sloped slowly down with no side passages or any thing remarkable for quite some time. Soon, the both of them were just aiming their flashlight beams stright ahead of them. This proved to be a costly error. The earth they were walking on collasped beneath them and down they fell, but luckily landed in water.

Splash!

"Mr. McDuck! You OK? I can't see a thing! It's black as pitch down here! Don't try to stand, I'm treading water! I can't feel the bottom and excuse me for saying so, but I'm bigger than you are!" Launchpad yelled.

"Launchpad, there's no need to scream. I'm right next to you. Not that you could tell that. And it is a good thing you yelled, I wouldn't have been able to find you if you hadn't." Mr. McDuck said.

"Then let's both listen as hard as we can. Maybe we can hear a noise to guide us out of here." Launchpad suggested. They both listened and soon heard the sound of running water.

" Is that a waterfall? It might be dangerous to follow it if it leads to too steep a waterfall." Mr. Mc Duck cautioned.

"I can't hear anything else. And we can't tread water forever, we'll get tired and drown. That noise might be a waterfall, might not. There's only one way to find out. So I don't know about you, but I'm taking my chances and following that noise." Launchpad said.  
Mr. McDuck hated to admit it, but that made sense.

In a few minutes, their eyes had adjusted to the darkness and they could see a little. They soon spotted something metal: the flashlights. (3) Launchpad fished them out and turned them on, and handed one to Mr. McDuck. Then he spotted 's cane and fished it out, too. Then he gave it to Mr. McDuck.

The noise was in fact a waterfall, but just a little one, hardly anything. The echoes in the cavern made it sound much bigger than it was. They climbed down the dry side of the small waterfall (4). Soon they heard a much more unnerving noise: somebody was firing off a gun!

"That's got to be El Captaine! He must be firing off that blunderbus of his!" Mr. McDuck said. "Come on, we're got to stop him! He's got to be firing at somebody!"

Launchpad followed.

The two stopped in amazement. Before them was a city, an underground city, yet light from the surface somehow reached down here, Lord only knows how. Surrounding the city were fields of grain, rivers, lakes, grass with goats grazing, roads, parks and small houses. But all the houses were stone. No gold any where. Not a speck.

That fact, of course, did not meet with El Captaine's approval one little bit.

"Where is the gold?" El Captiane screamed.

And El Captaine shoved his gun in the faces of the frightened inhabitants.

There were black marks on the stone buildings to show he had already fired off a few shots to show he meant business.

A tall, digified male duck came up to El Captaine. Sensing the man was someone in charge, Walking Slowly joined El Captaine.

"I am Lan. Chief of my people. This is the city of True Worth." Lan said.

"Fool, there is no gold here. Our ancestors left the Valley of the Golden Suns many centuries ago because they were sick and tired of gold. There was so much of it, it was hard and cold and you couldn't make anything useful out of it." Lan began.

"You couldn't make a plow or an axe or a hammer or nails out of gold, it's too soft a metal. About all you could make out of it is coins and jewerly and that's those are just frills. Our ancestors got sick of the stuff and left to find something much more precious than gold: food and water." Lan continued.

"The Valley of the Golden Suns was green enough during the rainy season, but often the rain failed- and many died of thirst and hunger amoung their gold. Our ancestors left and found this green, wet, underground land by accident- and built this city and settled here. There is no gold. We want no gold. If we never see gold again, it'll be too soon." Lan finished.

" I think he's telling the Truth, Mr. McDee. But neither El Captaine nor Walking believe him." Launchpad said.

"No, they think he's holding out on them. Like most people, they believe that everybody thinks the way they think. THEY would lie, so they assume he must be lying." Mr. McDuck agreed.

"You stay here. Maybe you can stall him or something. I'm going to try something." Mr McDuack said to Launchpad and he left.

Meantime, El Captaine and Walking were arguing with Lan, demanding the gold. When El Captaine started pointing his gun at kids, Launchpad had to do something.

"Excuse me, but I think my boss, Mr. McDuck may know where they hid the gold. He disappeared a few minutes ago and I haven't seen him since." Launchpad said, thinking that the latter part of that statement was true.

"You! You work for McDuck, don't you?" Walking said.

"For about 7 years, now." Launchpad said.

_"I'm a lousy liar, so I better stick as close to the Truth as I can, or they'll catch on to the fact I'm stalling. Wish I knew what Mr. McDuck was doing_." Launchpad thought.

"And just how much do you get paid?" Walking asked.

"As little as legally possible. And maybe I'm sick and tired of it? Not to mention getting yelled at for everything that goes wrong, wheither I had anything to do with it or not. Not to mention not getting thanked properly for risking my life." Launchpad said.

_" And maybe I think it's worth it because it means I get to help stick it to yahoos like you."_ Launchpad thought.

" Perhaps you can help us, senior. You will find us grateful when we find the gold." El Captaine said, not meaning a word of it. Launchpad nodded.

_"And if anybody believes a word you just said, I have a co-op in Iraq I'd like to sell them."_ Launchpad thought.

But just then, Mr. McDuck came back.

"El Captaine! Walking Slowly! Stop this madness at once! Stop shooting at these poor people, and I will show you where their gold is! I have found it!" Mr. McDuck said.

With that, Mr. McDuck opened his hand. In his palm was a single gold coin from the Treasure of the Golden Suns.

"How could he have found the gold before we did? We got here first!" Walking Slowly screamed.

"That madman can smell gold! Of course he found it first- he is drawn to gold like a magnet is drawn to iron!" El Captaine said.

"Put that gun down and I will show you where the rest of their gold is!" Mr. McDuck said.

"No, take me to the gold and perhaps I will not shoot you!" El Captaine screamed, pointing the gun and Mr. McDuck.

Launchpad, seeing that nobody was paying any attention to him (As usual. He hates that), kicked the stupid gun right out of El Captaine's hand. El Captine and Launchpad both scrambled for control of the gun and Launchpad tripped and ended up sitting on El Captaine.

"Get this fat oaf off of me!" El Captaine screamed.

"Hey! I'm not fat! And I'm not going anywhere till the local cops show up! This wasn't how I planned it, but it worked out pretty good. You can't go anyplace with me sitting on you! And you can't reach your gun, neither!" Launchpad said.

Meanwhile, Mr. McDuck took advantage of this distraction to use his cane to give Walking Slowly a "hello" on the head that kept him quiet for quite some time.

THEN, the local cops showed up. Figures. They arrested El Captaine and Walking Slowly and took them away.

Later, when Mr. McDuck and Launchpad checked up on El Captaine and Walking Slowly, they were in the Safehouse, a green and pleasant place. They would not be permitted to leave, yet it was more like a summer camp than a prison. Mr . McDuck and Launchpad decided to leave well enough alone and leave them there.

"Where did you get the coin from, anyway, Mr. McDee?" asked Launchpad.

" I asked. I asked if anyone had a bit of gold I could show them, so I could trick them into thinking I knew where the nonexistent rest of the gold was. This woman gave me all the gold they have: this one coin." Mr. McDuck replied.

" Lyse! My wife! Where did you get that coin!" Lan demanded of his wife, Lyse.

Lyse looked embarrassed.

" It has been in my family since we left the Valley of the Golden Suns. I never told you I had it, knowing how much you hate gold. My ancestor took it to remind him what the Valley was really like: cold and hard, yet beautiful. I kept it because it was a family heirloom. Forgive me for not telling you about it, my husband." she said.

"It saved our lives, this day." Lan replied.

"Well, it's looks like I went thur this all for nothing, if this is all the gold they have. " said. Mr. McDuck as he gave the coin back to Lyse.

"I don't know about that Mr. McDuck. This place is beautiful! Look at the artwork, all the murals and statues and stuff! And it's so quiet! Nice place for a vacation, seems to me. And these people have lived the same way for hundreds of years. What-do-you-call-it: anthopologists and archologists ought to have a field day here. These people might not use money- but they've never heard of hot dogs or soda or Lord know what else. Seems to me a trade might be arranged." Launchpad said.

So, after quite a bit of haggling and arguing by Mr. McDuck, vacationers and scientists came to the under ground city. And a very profitable time was had by Scrooge McDuck.

**The End.**

* * *

(1)Don't tell me you're surprised his ancestor cheated the other guy?

2) Please explain to me why Ugly Twerp would be willing to sell, design, and/or operate a digger for two such no-goodniks as El Captaine and Walking Slowly and why you don't have a problem with that?

They COULD use such a digger to dig into the Money Bin in order to "get even" with Mr. McDuck, you know.

Not that the Beagle Boys haven't tried that with a digger stolen from can't-invent-a-decent-lock. Three guesses who stopped them and his intials are L.M.

(Disney's "Ducktales" # 15, try www. my comic shop if you're looking for back issues. Or "The Gold Odyssey" .And did Disney try to somehow make it out to be LAUNCHPAD's fault that digger didn't have a deadman switch or am I totally obessed?)

I'm mad at Disney for being so MEAN to Launchpad. And for trying so hard to get Ducktales fans to like nutty inventor INSTEAD of Launchpad, to respect and admire Ugly Twerp but NOT Launchpad.

I'm not only mad at them for being mean to Launchpad, but for getting me to not be able to stand the sight of Ugly Twerp.

I originally LIKED him and originally called by his given name. I refuse point-blank to do so again until Disney returns Ducktales (or Launchpad) and drops the Launchpad-is-a-moron bit. Even if it means calling that nutty inventor Ugly Twerp for the rest of my life. And it may.

They tried so hard to get me to respect ANYBODY except Launchpad that contrariness and perversity reared their ugly heads and made me do the exact opposite.

3 )They were mostly plastic, but had a few rustproof metal parts that caught what little light there was.

(4)The water was in the middle, the banks were more or less dry. The flashlights and cane had washed up there, but were too heavy to go over the falls


End file.
